


epiphany

by brilyo



Category: Daenamhyup | DNH, 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Angst, Arguing, Colorism, F/M, Family Issues, Fluff, Friendship, Homophobia, Multi, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-05
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:35:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23029441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brilyo/pseuds/brilyo
Summary: Lim Yuri keeps a long record of epiphanies, many of which concern one very special Kim Namjoon. And maybe accidentally falls in love in the process.
Relationships: Kim Namjoon | RM/Lim Yuri | Laruna, Kim Namjoon | RM/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	epiphany

**Author's Note:**

> hello, this is my first writing work that i've posted on ao3!! i write primarily for my [krnb/khh oc laruna on tumblr](https://laruna.tumblr.com/), but an anon mentioned that since my fics can be upwards of 10k - 20k words, trying to read them on mobile can crash the app, so i decided to post it here so it can be read on mobile!! i'm not sure exactly how ao3 works yet, so please be nice!! ♡

⟹ 𝐃𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟒, 𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟕. 𝐋𝐢𝐦 𝐇𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝. 𝐒𝐞𝐨𝐮𝐥, 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐊𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐚.

_An **epiphany** is an experience of a sudden and striking realization._

Lim Yuri learned that in English class today. Admittedly, it was the first time in that class that she’d actually heard a word she didn’t know. English was the only language her parents both spoke, so it was all she ever spoke at home. Naturally, it had always been a subject that she breezed through until today.

Normally, she wouldn’t think much of it, but today was the last day of school before the holiday break, her teacher has very cruelly given her class over-the-break work. It’s not like it was anything hard, just the simple task of reciting an epiphany you’ve had over the holidays in perfect English to the class. Unlike most of her classmates, the English wasn’t the hard part.

Yuri has never been very fond of sharing things about herself. She’s always found blending into the background made every aspect of her life easier, so sharing a sudden realization that she’s had sounds like it’ll imply a lot about her. She figures that she’ll just make a list. At the end, she can choose.

  * _**Epiphany #01:** I look different from the other kids.  
_



She’s not quite sure if that one counts. It’s not something she’s suddenly realized, after all, especially just over the break. It’s something she’s known for a while now, slowly having come to realize it after all the little moments piled up. It’s in everything—the way the other kids in class look at her unless she keeps her head down, the way people talk to her in English first like she’s a foreigner, the way her aunt tells her she has the skin of Jeju and Busan’s beach girls. At first, she’d taken that last one as a compliment, but her aunt had run to the bathroom to give her a bottle of skin lightening cream before Yuri could say anything. Which was mortifying, to say the least.

Sometimes she does wish she lived in Busan instead. Even though her father grew up there, he never seems to have anything good to say about the city, always opting to badmouth everyone he left there instead. He tells her she should be grateful to live in Seoul where the people only say bad things when you’re not around, because they’re blatant about that kind of thing where he’s from. He tells her that the Looks she gets here in Seoul are soft and easy on her. Busanians are too honest.

She doesn’t say it out loud, but sometimes Yuri thinks Seoulites aren’t honest enough. Her mother always tells her not to care too much about what other people think, but she feels like it’d be a lot easier if people just insulted her to her face so she doesn’t have to worry about what they say about her behind the scenes. Is it worse than the insults she comes up with in her head? Is it kinder? Is it pitying? Do they see her and then think nothing at all?

She wishes she didn’t even have to think about these things at all. Sometimes she envies her brothers, because they get treated better than her. Her parents tell her it’s because they look more Korean, but Yuri has no idea what that could possibly mean. She thinks her classmates are distinguishable when she looks at them. They have different shaped eyes and faces and skin tones. Her differences are a smidge more obvious, to be sure, but she doesn’t see why it should be something that affects her social life as much as it does.

But at the end of the day, it does, so Yuri does her best to cause as little problems as possible. She doesn’t meet with her brothers to walk home together until they’re three blocks away from school so that people don’t know they’re related and start picking on them too. 

Her older brother isn’t happy about it, but he understands. He wishes she didn’t have to, but knows that it’s better this way. He apologizes to her for the ‘colorist, xenophobic, homogeneous society’ they live in. Yuri doesn’t understand what any of those words mean, but she nods along anyway.

Daniel, her poor angel of a little brother, doesn’t get it at all. He doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with her. Her heart breaks a little when he says that he wishes his _noona_ would wave back at him when they pass each other on campus. 

Yuri’s mother comforts her with the thought that if she lived in the Philippines, where she’s from, she’d be considered very beautiful. But she _doesn’t_ live in Busan or Jeju or the Philippines. She lives in Seoul.

So being the weird-looking kid it is.

Thankfully, she’s not entirely isolated. Even if her parents aren’t kind to each other, they’re kind to her and she knows they love her very much. And even if the kids from the music program she’s in with her older brother make a couple of insensitive comments from time to time, but for the most part, they’re nice as long as she does her part and sings her songs—that’s what brings her the most joy.

Despite everything that goes on in her life, it’s music that constantly remains her greatest love and comfort. Her older brother, Kyunghee, must feel the same way, because he’s always cooped up in her room with her and making music when their parents are arguing again and he doesn’t want to deal with it since his bedroom is right next to theirs. 

If there’s anything positive to be gleaned from it, it’s that they have something to bond over that isn’t the yelling that comes from upstairs. Over time, he’s even taught her a thing or two about music. She can’t compose anything on the piano like he can, but he’s taught her the basics of beat-making on some cracked version of GarageBand he pirated from the internet.

For whatever reason, he’s been really into hip-hop lately, so that’s what they’ve been making beats for. She can’t blame him, though. As a VIP, she’s kind of in the same boat. The fiery bars and pure charisma of _the_ Kwon Jiyong was too much for a music-obsessed teenage girl to resist. It’s a little more personal for Kyunghee, though. 

Shin Donghyuk is her brother’s best friend and a self-proclaimed underground rapper, despite only beginning to rap around a year ago. He’s not terrible or anything—the dude’s actually gained a good following since he began uploading his freestyles to Hiphopplaya and Jungle Radio. 

Still, Yuri finds it a little bit suspicious that he started rapping around the same time her brother started producing. She can’t help but wonder if Kyunghee began producing to help Donghyuk’s budding rap career or if Donghyuk started rapping because Kyunghee started making beats he could rap over. It’s like the chicken or the egg question.

It’s none of her business, she supposes, but Yuri’s still curious about their dynamic. All she knows is that, around school, she never sees one without the other, and that they’re always cooped up in the music room. She never approaches them because her older brother always looks like he’s in his own little world when he’s with Donghyuk and interrupting would make her feel like an interloper.

Her brother doesn’t seem to mind introducing them now, though. Today is apparently a big day for Donghyuk, because he’s going to be performing at a rap showcase at some club in Hongdae. Yuri thinks that it’s weird for them to be inviting fourteen year-old boys to clubs, but her brother assures her that the whole event is for rapping, so there’ll be no drinks around. So she _guesses_ it’s okay.

“I’m, uh, not sure, though,” he admits to her on the subway. “But don’t drink anything that anyone gives you. Don’t drink anything at all, actually. But don’t be uncool about it, either. Just—don’t embarrass me in front of Donghyuk, okay?”

“Okay,” Yuri says, rolling her eyes. Donghyuk is a figure she’s only seen in passing, but hasn’t actually met. Despite his friendship with her brother, he’s never been at their house, but when Yuri remembers the way her parents’ arguments resound through the walls, she can’t blame her brother for never inviting him over. She also can’t blame him for escaping to his friend’s house after school, sometimes. His escape is usually her bedroom, but sometimes it’s too loud even in there.

⟹ 𝐇𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐝𝐚𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐒𝐞𝐨𝐮𝐥, 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐊𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐚.

Yuri clings to her brother’s arm as they get off the subway station, and she can practically feel him vibrating in excitement to see his friend. Donghyuk is at the venue early like all the other performers, so they’re meeting him there. She makes it clear that she doesn’t get what all the fuss is about.

“It’ll be exciting to see him in action,” is all her brother says. “You’ve only heard recordings, no? And you’ll get to hear all the other underground rappers that use our free beats and stuff, too. So look on the bright side! Even if their rapping sucks balls, it’ll be funny. Plus, it’ll be a good networking opportunity if you ever wanna go into entertainment. If they look important, just pretend to like it.” She snorts at his insincerity.

“How business-savvy of you.”

Yuri has to squint when they finally get into the club. It’s dark and it’s loud, as one would expect, so she holds tighter onto her brother’s arm in the hopes that she won’t get lost. It was so bright outside, but the atmosphere inside makes it feel like it’s nighttime. If it weren’t for all the yelling, she would probably think of it as calming.

“Kyunghee! Over here!” she hears a voice call over the crowd, and turns to see a figure that she can vaguely make out as Donghyuk. Before she knows it, she’s being dragged all the way across the room towards the stage, muttering awkward apologies every time she bumps into someone.

Yuri’s dizzy once her brother makes a stop, tuning out the niceties and conversation he has with Donghyuk to gather her bearings. She doesn’t snap back into reality until she feels her older brother clap a hand down onto her shoulder.

“This is my sister,” he says, and she waves awkwardly. “I’ve been teaching her beats and stuff, too. I think we used one of hers on your last mixtape…? Her beats are under GLASS. You better get good, because I think she’s been learning more than you have.” 

So her brother is helping Donghyuk learn how to produce, too. Makes her feel a little less special.

“Luna, right?” he asks, snapping her out of her thoughts. “Weird name. Sounds like a video game character.” He puts his fist out. She’s flushing at his bluntness, but awkwardly bumps it, anyway. She’s trying to be polite and not embarrass her brother, after all.

“Oh, that’s what my brother and mom call me,” she explains, “Everyone at school calls me Yuri.”

“Makes sense. I just used Luna since that’s what Kyungie calls you,” he explains, and Yuri feels a little surge of pride at the fact that her brother talks about her to his friends. “Want me to call you Yuri, then? You probably get called that more by your friends and stuff, right?”

“I don’t really have friends,” she admits, wincing as soon as the words leave her mouth, because honestly, that sounded a lot less sad in her head. Donghyuk doesn’t seem to notice though, because he’s practically howling with laughter.

“Fuck, Yuri, you’re funny!” he laughs, clapping a hand down a little too forcefully on one of her delicate shoulders. She winces again at that, but nervously laughs along like it’s a joke and not just… her life. She also accepts Donghyuk’s bestowment of the name Yuri. It’s just a name, but maybe it’s his way of telling her that he’s her friend now. Which is kinda nice.

He seems nice enough, but he’s too brash and loud and blunt for Yuri to comprehend how he could possibly be best friends with someone as soft-spoken as her Kyunghee. Still, she’s glad her brother has a good friend, even if her current interactions with Donghyuk are kinda weird.

“So,” Kyunghee interrupts, having had enough of the awkward atmosphere. “You said in your text they wanted help with sound check?” Seems a little trashy to make teenage boys help out with this kind of thing, Yuri thinks.

“Yeah,” Donghyuk confirms. “They can only have three people in the sound booth, including the guy who’s already there. C’mon!” Kyunghee looks all too giddy as Donghyuk grabs his arm and drags him away, probably to the aforementioned sound booth. In the moment, he looks too carefree to be her worrywart of a brother.

“You can handle yourself, yeah?” he yells out to her as he’s being dragged away. He doesn’t wait for her to answer before he’s out of earshot.

“Totally,” Yuri says sarcastically to herself.

Alone, she finds herself weaving through the crowd again. Without her brother around, she finds herself easily slipping in between everybody thanks to her small stature. She takes in soft lights and harsh voices as she makes her way towards the seats by the entrance, which seems a bit more void of people. Everything around her is too stimulating right now. Soft lights. Harsh voices. 

Yuri’s almost there when she bumps into a tall male figure. She looks up to see sharp eyes narrow at her, so threatening and intense that she almost jumps back. His street clothes help up the intimidation factor, along with the dark beanie concealing his jet black hair.

“Sorry,” she mutters. He doesn’t reply, gently shoving her out of the way before continuing to trudge along his weird, bendy path. She watches as the big guy bumps into a few other people before coming to a realization.

“Hey!” she calls out to him, and he whips around to narrow his eyes at her (again), which she now realizes is more of a squint than a glare. “Are you looking for your glasses?”

His eyes soften, gaze immediately turning away from her in embarrassment.

“N-No!” he sputters, but the way he says it makes it very obvious he’s lying. She really doesn’t know why she’s attempting to help this guy out in the first place. Either she feels bad, or she just wants to be right. 

Probably the latter, if she’s being honest.

“If you admit it, I’ll help you find them,” she says.

“…I lost my glasses.”

They’re probably a sight to see, the tall boy squinting down at the ground with Yuri practically glued to his hip, finding a much easier time seeing with her contacts and closer proximity to the ground.

“How’d you lose them anyway?” she asks, and he sheepishly rubs at the back of his neck.

“It was in my back pocket,” he explains. “To be honest, I didn’t even realize I’d dropped them until I reached for them and they weren’t there.”

“Why weren’t you, like, actually wearing them?” she asks, matter-of-factly.

“I’m rapping soon,” he says like that’s an explanation. “It won’t help my image.” 

“Oh, ugh.” 

“What?” he says.

“Are all you rap dudes like this?” she asks, “Just swallow your pride and don’t hurt your eyeballs trying to look cool. If your rapping is good enough, it doesn’t matter if you look like a loser or not.”

“Gee, thanks,” he says sarcastically.

“Look, I didn’t mean it like that,” she defends herself. “You don’t look like a loser and there’s nothing wrong with glasses. I think the only person who seems to have a problem with it is you.”

“Name one successful rapper with glasses,” he retorts.

“Swings,” she says immediately.

“Shit,” he mutters, and she laughs at him. “Oh, fuck off.”

“Hey, be nice!” she huffs. “You’re a complete stranger and I’m helping you find your glasses. For all I know, you could be leading me outside to kidnap and murder me. Heck, I don’t even know your name!” He rolls his eyes as she points this out, but answers, anyway.

“Namjoon,” he says.

“What?”

“That’s my name. Namjoon,” he repeats, stretching out a hand. When Yuri takes a look at it, she realizes just how big he is. His hand would absolutely dwarf hers. 

“Yuri,” she says formally. When she steps forward to shake his hand, she feels her foot clink against something and hears the light sound of plastic sliding across the floor. “Oh, your glasses!” 

The lenses are thick, she notes as she picks them up. Damn, no wonder he was bumping into everyone. His vision must suck. Other than a few scratches on the lenses, they seem fairly undamaged. Even so, she gently blows a warm breath onto the lenses and wipes them off with the sleeves of her hoodie. Less gently, she pulls Namjoon down by the strings of his hoodie so that they’re at eye-level with one another before putting his glasses back on his face. Even in the low light, she can see the embarrassed flush across his cheeks.

“Thanks for the help,” he says sheepishly, quickly straightening up and pulling away. “Gotta go now. It’s showtime.” And then he’s off.

“Who the hell says ‘it’s showtime’ out loud?!” she yells after him, not ready to give this guy a break just yet. 

“Who the hell wears their jacket like that?!” he turns around to yell back. Involuntarily, she pulls on the side of the puffy down jacket she leaves hanging off of her body. When she flounders for a response, he just laughs at her, a deep, loud thing that booms over the chatter of the crowd. She bets the sound could fill the whole room if it were empty.

She looks away, embarrassed, when she notices people are seating themselves and quickly plops herself down on the nearest seat. _Well, shit. It really is showtime._

A lot of the rappers are vaguely familiar to her, and she’s struck with the realization that names she’d only seen online now have actual physical forms. They’re obviously passionate about what they’re doing, and now she kind of feels bad for how her and her brother used to roast whoever they deemed ‘the worst ones’ from behind their computer screen.

When Donghyuk steps up, the host introduces him as Suprema—yes, like the hype beast brand. She shivers as the Douche Chills overtake her body. Despite his overwhelming teenage boy-ness, he’s pretty okay, or at the very least, better than she expected. But the bar was pretty low, if she’s being honest. Kyunghee probably thinks the world of his skills, though.

The only other familiar face she sees is introduced as Runch Randa, and she has to stop herself from cooing at how cute she finds the stage name. She also has to stop herself from rolling her eyes all the way into the back of her head when she realizes he’s not wearing his fucking glasses.

As much as she wants to clown on him, she finds herself speechless when Namjoon steps up to the mic and spits straight fire, his narrowed eyes making him look all the more intense. While he’s not quite as aggressive as some of the other rappers she’s heard, his lyrics are riddled with wordplay and double-meanings that it takes her a couple of seconds to wrap her head around.

She’s snapped out of her reverie when she hears the crowd cheering, prompting her to clap along. Thoughts of Runch Randa dissipate as the next act steps up. She doesn’t quite recognize the name or face, so she lets herself get lost in the music without predisposition. When she recognizes one of her beats being used as background music, her heart beats a little bit faster.

Yuri knows that posting them online for free means lots of people will use them, but it’s another thing to actually see it in action. The amount of amateur rappers, good and bad, using _her_ music and appreciating what she does for them makes her feel all warm and fuzzy. Huh. Maybe that’s why Kyunghee enjoys helping out Donghyuk with his rapping endeavors so much.

By the time the show is over, she’s warm and happy, but also very drained of energy. She has half a mind to head backstage to search for her brother, but the thought of swimming through the moving crowd makes her nauseous, so she heads outside instead. Kyunghee will find her eventually.

It’s dark when Donghyuk and Kyunghee finally come outside, laughing over ‘some newbie’s shitty freestyle’ with their arms slung over the other’s shoulders. They talk animatedly about what they liked and hated on the walk to the station and in the subway. Yuri nods along to the conversation despite having been tuned out for a while now. The only thing in her head is music. In the moment, something about that feels very important.

  * _**Epiphany #02:** Music is something Lim Yuri wants to do for a long time. Maybe forever._



* * *

⟹ 𝐉𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝟏𝟐, 𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟖. 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐛𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐬, 𝐒𝐞𝐨𝐮𝐥, 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐊𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐚.

Ever since that show in Hongdae, Yuri’s been more in love with music than ever. Naturally, she’s thrust herself into it with a passion, making new instrumentals when she’s at home and working on improving her vocals with the kids from her music program when she isn’t. Other than that, though, she hasn’t exactly left her house. Not until today, at least.

Apparently, she wasn’t the only one meeting new people at that Hongdae show—Donghyuk and Kyunghee had done a good amount of networking backstage, exchanging numbers and starting a group chat with a bunch of other underground rappers. In time, they decided that the others were cool enough to work on music with in-person. So here they are, Yuri and Kyunghee spending their last Saturday of winter break waiting for everyone else to arrive.

Suddenly, Donghyuk enters with a very familiar figure in tow.

Namjoon grimaces as soon as he makes eye contact with her, and Yuri has to bite her lip to hold in her laughter, because damn, this dude really sucks at keeping a straight face. Neither action goes unnoticed, it seems, because Donghyuk sweeps his gaze back and forth between the two.

“You two know each other?” he asks, and Yuri nods, a devilish grin on her face. Namjoon’s expression of anguish only deepens when Donghyuk adds, “Oh, nice. Is he cool?”

Namjoon sends a nervous glance her way, looking like a kid who’s just been caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to do. It endears her, for whatever reason, so Yuri spares his pride.

“Yeah,” she giggles, unable to hold her laughter in anymore, “Yeah, Namjoon’s cool.” His body relaxes at that, but the tips of his ears still glow bright red.

“Hey,” Kyunghee says, nudging her arm. “He’s our age. Don’t go talking to him casually, now. Show some respect.” She rolls her eyes, but obliges.

“Namjoon-oppa,” she corrects herself, and he smiles, looking a bit too satisfied at that. Maybe it’s because now he has something to hold over her head, too. It lowkey makes her want to smack him. Before she can say anything, though, two slightly less familiar figures walk through the door,

They introduce themselves as Hunchul and Ikje, or by stupid-teenage-boy-rap-name, Iron and i11evn, respectively. Yuri finds both monikers considerably cooler than Suprema and Runch Randa, if she was being honest. The guys themselves, though, are a lot less cool.

Ikje is twenty, which is like, okay, weird. It makes sense when Donghyuk cracks a joke about him being a little drunk when they exchanged contact information. What kind of twenty year-old was keen on hanging out with a bunch of fourteen year-old boys and one of the boy’s twelve year-old kid sister? He’s a little immature, to be sure, but passionate about rapping. And that’s what everyone is there for, so she lets it slide purely because he doesn’t seem like a creeper.

Despite being the same age as her brother and everyone else, Hunchul does seem like a creeper.

“You’re Glass, right?” he asks, shaking her hand. “I’m Iron. Our names kind of match, right?” 

“Um, yeah, I guess,” she says, forcing a laugh. Awkwardly, she continues, “My big brother chose the name for me… because my name is Yuri… and that sounds like glass.”

“Big brother?” he asks. “Kyunghee is my age, you know. How old does that make you?” Her cringe reflex nearly kicks in, infinitely uncomfortable at this point.

“Thirteen next month,” she answers honestly, and fights the urge to cringe when he pats her head. As touch-starved as she is, she’s not this desperate.

“Ha, cute,” he laughs. She doesn’t think he’s very funny. She’s always prided herself on her instincts, and something about Hunchul just feels off.

Thankfully, she doesn’t have to deal with him for long. The group all converses for a while, but soon enough, they’ve all kind of splintered off into pairs for conversation. As expected, Kyunghee’s first pick for this is Donghyuk. Naturally, she gravitates towards Namjoon.

“Hey, glasses guy,” she says, and he flushes.

“Oh God, please don’t let that become a thing,” he says, wrinkling his nose.

“Sorry,” she says, even though she really isn’t.

“It’s fine,” he says, scratching nervously at his face. “I actually wanted to thank you again for that. I lose things a lot and my mom probably would’ve killed me if I lost my glasses.”

“Oh, it was nothing,” she assures him, but the gratitude still has her glowing.

“I should probably thank you for producing, too,” he continues, “When your brother said you were a 96-liner in our group chat, I was so surprised, because I recognized your account name since I’d used your beats before, since they’re free and all. You’re really talented.”

“Oh,” Yuri says softly, covering her flushed cheeks and wide smile with her hands. Her glee is soon apparent when she fails to hide a giggle, preening under his praises. Her voice goes small when she finally replies, ducking her head. “Well. You’re very welcome.” He laughs at her sudden bashfulness.

Conversation continues smoothly, even if it’s mostly about music. The atmosphere emanating from their little group in the cafe is warm and lively. Even when the barista has to come over to tell the group to simmer down, she can’t find it in herself to be upset.

She hasn’t had many friends in her life, but the way things are going, she feels like she will soon. She makes a mental note to add it to the list when she gets home.

  * _**Epiphany #03:** Lim Yuri is capable of making friends, after all._



* * *

⟹ 𝐉𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝟏𝟔, 𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟖. 𝐋𝐢𝐦 𝐇𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝, 𝐒𝐞𝐨𝐮𝐥, 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐊𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐚.

It’s been two days since school started back up, but it already makes Yuri want to claw her eyes out. She ended up just bullshitting that English assignment and spitting out some shit about how she had an epiphany about platypi being the only mammals to lay eggs or something.

But for whatever reason, she’s still adding onto that epiphany list. Kyunghee catches her adding onto it one night and says that she probably likes it because it gives her life more structure. She tells him it’s not that deep, bro. 

But maybe it is. Who knows. She adds it to the Epiphany List, just to be safe.

  * _**Epiphany #04:** I like things that give my life structure.  
_



Her mind jumps to the very turbulent, very unstructured family life they have at home, and thinks that maybe he might be onto something. Thankfully, it’s not that bad today, but her parents are still not speaking to one another and shooting each other passive-aggressive stares from across the table, thinking their kids won’t notice. If she had the balls, she’d tell them how obvious they are.

Unfortunately, her younger brother Daniel _does_ have the balls. When he opens his mouth to speak, their mother must sense the impending bullshit, and quickly interrupts.

“How was school?” she asks, turning to Kyunghee—easily the most diplomatic of the three of them.

“It was good,” he says, “Classes were good. Friends were good.”

“Any friends in particular? Of the romantic variety?” she teases, poking him a couple of times in the side. Their mama loved gossip too much. Everytime they brought it up, she’d say _I’m Filipino, I can’t help it! Gossiping is in my blood!_

Yuri and Daniel roll their eyes fondly at her antics—usually, Kyunghee would be doing the same.

_But he doesn’t._

“Uh, n-no,” he stutters. Kyunghee always stutters when he’s lying. There’s a beat of silence before Kyunghee answers. Their mother looks entirely too pleased with the fact that after what has to be the thousandth time of asking about this topic, her hunch is finally right.

“Subtle, _hyung_ ,” Daniel snorts. “Way to be fuckin’ obvious.” Their father reaches over and pulls at his ear.

“Don’t curse, Jaeyeol,” he says. Daniel shrinks in his seat.

“Sorry.”

The rest of dinner is tense, their dad having successfully killed the vibe. They wash their dishes and clear the table in awkward silence, every action done hurriedly so they can get the fuck out of there as fast as possible. Afterwards, everyone else files back into their respective rooms, but Yuri follows her older brother instead. Fer and her older brother are both in middle school, so she’s curious if she knows whoever her mom was teasing him about. Always too nosy for her own good, she’s determined to find out. Maybe it’s that Filipino blood her mother was talking about.

Kyunghee doesn’t think much of it when she follows him back into his room. Maybe it was because of the age difference, but he was always closer to her than he was to Daniel, just like Yuri was always closer to Daniel than he was to Kyunghee. Her coming into his room to talk about stuff—especially music, these days—was commonplace. He pays no mind as she flops onto his bed, making his way over to sit at his desk and turn on his computer instead.

“Soooo,” Yuri says obnoxiously, just as a little sister should. “Who is she?”

She was expecting Kyunghee to roll his eyes at her like he always did, not quite spilling the deets but dropping little hints and hoping she’d dig enough to get it. But there’s none of that—instead, he presses his lips into a thin line and shakes his head.

“Drop it, Yuri,” he says through clenched teeth, turning around in his seat to glare at her. His tone is so sharp that she can’t help but to curl in on herself. He must see the fear in her response, because his expression immediately softens.

“Look, I’m sorry, just—just forget about it. It’s nothing, Yuri, okay?” he sighs. Normally, she wouldn’t pry, but this is Kyunghee, her older brother who tells her everything.

“I won’t judge, I promise,” she assures him, “Everyone likes someone for a reason, you know? I promise I won’t laugh or anything, even if she’s a total weirdo—”

“It’s not a she, Yuri.” He’s turned back to his screen by now, but even just from his profile Yuri can see the flush of mortification on his face.

“Wait, that means…” she trails off and everything clicks. “Oh, _oppa_.”

“This isn’t something you can help me with,” he cuts her off tersely. “This isn’t something you can understand. Just—just go to your room, Yuri.” He sounds like their dad. It makes her feel small.

Regardless, she nods, plodding along back to her room with a heavy heart. When she gets there, she sits at her desk and opens up her journal, adding another bullet to her epiphany journal.

  * _**Epiphany #05:** Sometimes you won’t be able to understand what someone is going through, no matter how hard you try. No matter how hard you want to._



* * *

⟹ 𝐉𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝟏𝟖, 𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟖. 𝐃𝐆𝐁𝐃 𝐂𝐥𝐮𝐛, 𝐇𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐝𝐚𝐞, 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐊𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐚.

It’s moments like these that make Yuri remember that, oh yeah, these rap clubs are still clubs.

Ikje is the only one of legal drinking age, so he’s the only one downing alcohol on the opposite side of the club. Hunchul is sat right there next to him in the corner of the bar, handing the bartender more and more money so he can witness his friend get absolutely shitfaced. Unlike Ikje, he is not of legal drinking age, but that will not deter him from seeking entertainment in any way he can… even at his friend’s expense. Meanwhile, Kyunghee and Donghyuk mess around in soundcheck and Namjoon looks to sit as far away from Ikje and Hunchul as he can get. 

It’s kind of endearing, she thinks, the way Namjoon is so straight-laced about these things, despite his ‘hard’ underground persona. Outside of it, he comes off as kind of a stickler. Maybe a little dweeby, but it’s why she trusts him more than the others, so she pays it little mind when he situates himself next to her at the opposite side of the club so he’s not alone.

_Poor Namjoon_ , her low self-esteem weeps for him. _Having to kick it with Kyunghee’s annoying kid sister._

He’s nice enough, so she supposes he’s good at humoring her. Kyunghee would kill him if he was anything but polite to her. That, or the more likely possibility that he’s being nice because this is a business transaction, which makes sense, too. She’s just here to be the producer to his rapper, the Kyunghee to his Donghyuk… minus the lifelong friendship part.

She doesn’t know why talking to him is so daunting when they spoke extensively in the group chat—which she is very proud to say she made her brother add her to last Sunday—so it’s not like they’re strangers. She didn’t love the vibes in there, but they never did anything to make her feel like she was on the outskirts of it all. That’s something she’s imposed on herself. She just didn’t know what to talk about in the chat if it didn’t have to do with music.

She tries not to think much of it, distracting herself with the notebook in her lap. In it, she takes little notes on all the different rappers and indie artists she sees performing throughout the night. On top of her writing it in English, she doubts anyone would understand the references and shorthand she uses, so she makes little move to cover it when Namjoon leans over and squints at it.

“Nosy,” she chides playfully.

“Sorry.” He pulls away with a flush. “What are you writing about?”

“Oh. It’s just like, an analysis, kind of? Of everyone’s different rapping styles,” she explains. “Like flow and lyricism and genre and stuff like that. It’s kind of just for me. I produce better if I know who I’m producing for and how they sound, y’know?” He nods.

“Yeah, that makes sense,” he says. Leaning over to peek at it again, he adds, “Your handwriting is nice, by the way. I didn’t know you were so good at English.”

“Yeah, my brother and I are both fluent,” she says, looking down at her hands. “We speak it at home. But like, I’m no good with words, so I’d be no good for songwriting help or whatever. I don’t know. It’s dumb. I’m dumb. I’m fluent in two languages, but can’t speak like… in general. That’s why I’m a beatmaker and not a songwriter.” 

Oh God, she rambled.

Namjoon is staring right at her when she looks back up. She forces herself not to look away—that would be suspicious, right?—despite the probing, unreadable expression on his face making her cheeks heat in embarrassment. Conversations between them rarely strayed into personal territory, especially when their whole relationship was about music. In her head, she repeats the phrase business transaction over and over again like a mantra. She can’t help but feel like she’s crossed a boundary.

“If it helps any,” he offers with a grin, “My mom’s trying to get me to learn English by making me watch _Friends_. I can’t make out what your notes say quite yet, but I like to think I’m getting pretty good.” Yuri laughs at that, surprised but relieved.

“You strike me as a Chandler,” she says. “Maybe a Ross.”

“I’ll have you know that I’m very offended by that second accusation,” he says, but he’s still smiling. She giggles into her hands.

“Sorry,” she says, despite not being very apologetic at all. “If you ever need help with English stuff, you know. I’m here.”

She doesn’t know why she says that, but it feels right. It feels like something a friend would say.

“Yeah, that sounds good,” he says, “I’d like that.” That feels like something a friend would say, too.

They very coincidentally spend the rest of the night talking about _Friends_. They both agree that Ross is a douchebag and that Rachel deserves better. They talk and talk until it’s closing time and the club owner starts yelling at them to just say goodnight and go! Before kicking them out. Everyone stumbles out of the door bursting with laughter, with even shitfaced Ikje giggling drunkenly as he hangs off of Kyunghee’s shoulder.

They’re still laughing even as they run through the streets in a frantic attempt to catch the last subway. Yuri can’t help but think that it feels just like those teenage coming-of-age movies, the ones where they go to high school parties with red Solo cups in their hands. It almost feels like a dream, a fantasy that she never thought she’d get to have.

Namjoon lets her hold his hand so he can drag her along as they run, seeing as her short legs don’t allow her to keep up with the others. She wonders if it’s the cold night air or the way that he links their fingers together that make her cheeks flush.

  * _**Epiphany #06:** Lim Yuri has a friend._



* * *

⟹ 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝟏𝟓, 𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟖. 𝐏𝐂 𝐁𝐚𝐧𝐠, 𝐇𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐝𝐚𝐞, 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐊𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐚.

Okay, so maybe Kim Namjoon is not necessarily a _friend_ , per se.

Not to say that he’s unfriendly, or that he doesn’t want to be her friend, but friendship is the kind of thing that develops slowly, right? They’d only just started hanging out recently, after all, and the age and gender difference was bound to make forming a meaningful friendship just a little bit harder.

At this point, though, he’s definitely more than a business partner. Maybe not a friend just yet, but more than just an acquaintance. He feels like a classmate, a peer. Her answering his texts asking for help with English homework has definitely helped with that, as of late. Conversations have continued to stay outside of personal territory, especially when the others were around. 

While Friday nights were reserved for rap performances at DGBD Club, Saturdays were for going out somewhere that they could work on music together or just chilling and hanging out together. They rarely ever met up on Sundays, which were reserved for Yuri helping her mom at her job of doing vocal training with the weird musical theater kids. For Kyunghee and Namjoon, Sundays were cram school days, and for the others… she didn’t really care how the others spent their Sundays, if she was being honest.

As of today, they’ve decided to migrate to a PC bang since there’s a distinct lack of baristas yelling at them to shut up. Plus, if they want to take a break to play MapleStory, they won’t have to worry about the club or the cafe having a shitty bandwidth. 

They’ve got a two-person-per-computer policy, and Yuri finds herself immediately paired off with Namjoon. She doesn’t feel like pairing off with her brother—his energy has been kind of awkward around her since his confession—and she doesn’t like the rest of the guys’ vibes, so Namjoon it is.

They’re stuck away from the others, the only available computers in the PC bang spread far away from each other. She notices he’s talking to her a bit more freely. Self-consciously, she wonders if it’s because he’s embarrassed to talk to her around their friends or if he’s intimidated by her older brother breathing down his neck.

“Do you not like them?” Namjoon asks, out of the blue.

“Huh?” she says, blinking a couple of times in surprise. “Who? What? What are you talking about?”

“You know,” he says. “The others. Hunchul and Donghyuk and Ikje-hyung and them.”

“I don’t dislike anyone,” Yuri huffs, maybe too defensively. “I just—I don’t know. I mean, I don’t like them, but it’s not like I dislike them.”

“Why though?” he asks. “Did they do something weird?”

“No, nothing like that,” she assures him. After a long while of thinking, she admits, “I just don’t like their energy, I guess. I get weird vibes from them, you know?” Namjoon scoffs.

“You shouldn’t pass that kind of judgement without reason,” he says. “You’re smart. Use your brain.”

“I’m not really that smart,” she laughs nervously, ducking her head to hide the flush on her cheeks. “I only use my brain, like, thirty percent of the time.” He laughs at that. For whatever reason, it feels like victory.

“C’mon, don’t say that,” he says reassuringly, “You come up with like, five new beats a week.”

“That’s different!” she argues. “Producing is more… subjective? Than words and lyrics and stuff, I mean. So you can just go with your gut to see if it sounds good or not. You don’t have to think too hard like you do when you write lyrics. Putting stuff into words is hard. Feeling my way through stuff has worked for me ‘til now, so I’m gonna keep doing that.” He shakes his head at that, but relents.

“You do you, I guess,” he says. “But I think I’d choose going using my brain over my gut any day.”

“Did you use your brain when you were bumping into everyone at the club ‘cause you lost your glasses? Or were you using your gut?” she asks cheekily. “It kinda seemed like you were using neither, if we’re being honest.” He rolls his eyes before leaning over to flick her on the forehead.

“Shut up,” he laughs, a flush on his cheeks. When he turns back to the computer screen, she can see his profile from where she’s standing next to their desk. She notices something she hadn’t before, and it makes her realize she’s never quite seen him grin so long. She lets out a little gasp of delight.

“What?” he says.

“Nothing.” 

He furrows his brows at her response, but doesn’t press it any further, either. When she gets home, she gleefully adds her newfound discovery to her list.

  * _**Epiphany #07:** Kim Namjoon has dimples.  
_



It’s an unexpectedly cute addition to the hard rap persona she’s always envisioned him with.

* * *

⟹ 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟕, 𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟖. 𝐋𝐢𝐦 𝐇𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝, 𝐒𝐞𝐨𝐮𝐥, 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐊𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐚.

“Holy shit, this place is nice,” Donghyuk whistles as he takes off his shoes.

Yuri is not exactly thrilled about Kyunghee inviting everyone over to their house.

Chilling together at PC bangs and the DGBD Club was one thing, but inviting these people into her home was… not ideal. She didn’t exactly love being vulnerable around other people, so she considered her house a safe space to do just that. Having guests over makes her feel like she’s in school again—and just like when she’s in school, she would prefer to be blissfully ignored.

Thankfully, she is. The boys are all switching between fucking around on her and her brother’s shared MIDI keyboard and kicking each other’s asses on Kyunghee’s copy of Super Smash Bros. Brawl for Wii. She also gets to stuff her face, so she supposes it’s not all that bad. Their mom had made way too much food, impossibly happy that Kyunghee was finally bringing friends home. It was unprecedented for him. Sadly, she could guess why this was the first time for that, seeing as he had very conveniently picked the day that their dad was gone on a business trip.

She quietly sits in the corner and eats her _tteokbokki_ , careful not to spill any of the sauce on her notebook as she writes in it. She nearly chokes when Namjoon makes his way towards her, because she can’t quite wrap her head around it. It makes her a little tingly when he chooses to spend time around her even though he really doesn’t have to.

Now that she thinks about it, they’ve been doing that a lot lately. Hanging out alone, she means. Texting each other one-on-one rather than in the group chat, heading out to Hongdae separate from Kyunghee and Donghyuk, going out to PC bangs and Starbucks without everyone else. In the beginning, it was just so they could tutor each other, as they’d made the deal that while she helped him with his English, he’d help her with the horror that was linear equations.

Yuri can’t fathom how he can find English so hard but algebra so easy. It’s very Namjoon-like, she thinks. He’s incredible at very niche things, but he can’t do things that most people can do. She’d never want to humiliate him by asking, but Kyunghee heard from Donghyuk that Namjoon can’t tie his shoelaces correctly. And honestly? She believes it. He strikes her as a scatterbrained genius.

She thinks about Namjoon a lot lately, for whatever reason. But not in a bad way. If anything, she regards even his worst quirks fondly, like how he duct tapes his bag because he keeps accidentally breaking the strap off or those times (yes, there were multiple) he made them run back to the PC bang while they were walking back to the subway station because he suddenly remembered that he left his phone there. Despite all this, for whatever reason, she’s been feeling exceptionally shy around him lately. 

Is this what it’s like having a friend? She doesn’t know if it’s just the fluttery excitement of a new friendship, but it makes her face go hot. It only gets worse when he leans over her where she’s sitting at the table, his chest lightly pressed against the back of her seat.

“What are you writing in there?” he asks.

“Just stuff I’ve noticed,” she says casually. “Nothing interesting.”

“I see my name there, though,” he says, and she immediately clamps her hand over the page. Her response makes him chuckle.

“I thought you couldn’t read English,” she says, cheeks flushed.

“I’ve improved. Thanks for that, by the way,” he teases. That bastard. “What is that? What did you write about me?”

“It’s the same thing I was working on in Hongdae,” she admits. “The music analysis notebook.”

“And you wrote about me?” he asks.

“Yes?” she says, like it’s obvious. “You’re pretty prominent, dude.” 

“Interesting,” he says, looking at her expectantly.

“What?”

“Are you gonna tell me what it says?” he asks. “You wrote about me, so it’s only fair, right?”

“I guess,” she says, flushing.

“What’s this say?” he asks, pointing to a sentence that follows his name.

“Oh, that just… that just describes how like, you do this thing, sometimes,” she laughs nervously. “You do this thing when you rap, where you like… _puncture_ the ends of syllables very aggressively. It’s just funny because that’s how English sounds, but like, you’re doing it in Korean, and… I don’t know. It stands out. I just like when you do it.”

“Oh.” He makes a face.

“Hey, I don’t mean—it’s unique. Because it sounds English, but it’s not?” she explains, but it feels like she’s digging herself into a deeper and deeper hole. So she continues, “Uh, I don’t know how to explain it. It probably just stands out to me because I speak English? But it’s still good. It’s really cool, actually. It’ll be good for when you audition for a label or whatever you wanna do.”

“Oh, I don’t know if I…” he trails off, shaking his head. “I don’t know if I’m ever going to audition or do anything like that. To be honest, I was just planning on doing something behind the scenes, you know?”

“What? Why?” she asks. 

“I don’t know,” he sighs. “I don’t think my parents really like the idea of me becoming a rapper as like, a career. I always figured I’d go to college for sound engineering and become a producer or something like that. Technically, they can still call me an engineer. They can’t get mad then, right?” It’s delivered jokingly, but Yuri can feel the underlying truth in it, sad and wistful.

It’s moments like this that make Yuri realize how easy she has it. No matter how rocky her family life has gotten, her parents had always supported her and Kyunghee’s pursuits.

“That’s shitty,” she huffs, lying her cheek against the smooth wood of the table. “What a waste. You’re one of the better rappers I’ve heard, to be honest. Not becoming a rapper would be, like, a disservice to all of South Korea.”

“Don’t say that,” he says sheepishly, but he can’t stop smiling.

“I’m telling the truth,” she says, and she is. “I mean, most of the dudes who want to drop out and become SoundCloud rappers are doomed, but you have actual talent. You could pull it off, though. You could be the chosen one.” Namjoon laughs, ducking his head to hide his flushed cheeks.

“You’re too much,” he chuckles, shaking his head.

When he leaves to go to the bathroom, she flips her journal to the back where her epiphany list is.

  * _**Epiphany #08:** Sometimes hardworking, talented people don’t get what they deserve.  
_



What a bummer.

* * *

⟹ 𝐀𝐮𝐠𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝟏𝟓, 𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟖. 𝐇𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐝𝐚𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐒𝐞𝐨𝐮𝐥, 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐊𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐚.

There’s no single observation that makes it all fall into place—it hits her suddenly, like whiplash, as she’s walking home from the subway station with her brother, like all the little moments she thought nothing of before had suddenly come together to form this big amalgamation of questionable. 

Hands lingering on top of each other for an extra long second during keyboard lessons. Glances for just a bit too long when he isn’t looking. The constant stream of yeses, even when it’s for something she can’t possibly fathom anyone wanting to agree to.

_Of course, Donghyuk. Sure, Donghyuk. Okay, Donghyuk. Donghyuk. Always. Anything._

“Oppa, do you like Donghyuk?”

Kyunghee stumbles, tripping over the question like it’s a brick placed before his feet.

“Huh? What? Huh?” he sputters, too hurried to be casual. “Of course I do? Of course I do. Like him I mean. He’s my friend. I like him.”

“Oh… you know what I mean,” she says, refusing to push the obvious out into the open. Usually, she’d just say what’s on her mind like she always did, but being wrong about this kind of thing would be mortifying for them both. When he flushes and quiets, she knows that she’s not wrong.

“Don’t tell him,” he chokes out, voice cracking he’s going to cry. He puts a hand over his face so she can’t see, so maybe he really is. “Please don’t tell him.”

“Hey, hey, hey!” she rushes over to hug him, letting him lean down half a foot so he can drop his head to cry into her shoulder.

“I can’t just—we’re mixed kids living in Korea, Yuri, things suck for us as it is! I’m not interested in making life harder for myself!” he tells her. Everything comes out rushed, like he’s presenting a PowerPoint and he has like ten slides left to get through but only two minutes left.

“Hey, hey, hey—” she tries, but he doesn’t let her speak.

“And nothing’s gonna come out of it, anyway,” he continues. “He’s the most heterosexual man alive, his—his fucking rap name is Supreme Boi, for fuck’s sake. Like the fucking hype beast brand. And—and have you heard him speak? He sounds like the guys that called me a fag in middle school.”

“You don’t think he’s like that, do you?” she says, eyes sad and droopy as she rubs comforting circles into his back. His scoffs.

“We high-fived and he said ‘no homo’ right afterwards,” he says, like it’s an answer. 

Well. It basically is.

“Why would you like a person like that?” she asks, appalled. Her brother is a good person who deserves nice things, so she cannot fathom why he would subject himself to this kind of torture. 

“I don’t know. I don’t even know how or when or why it happened. I just…” he trails off. Then sighs. “I guess you don’t know ‘til you know.” 

To be honest, Yuri has no idea what the fuck he’s trying to say.

“Sounds dumb,” is all she can offer.

“It is dumb,” her brother agrees. “And confusing and controlling for no reason. You just fall into it, I guess. And you barely ever get anything in return for it.”

Yuri’s nose wrinkles at the senselessness of it all, but she supposes it’s something she’d have to learn eventually. When they get home that night, she takes note of it in her journal.

  * _**Epiphany #09:** Love is dumb. Cost outweighs benefit. Do not attempt._



* * *

⟹ 𝐒𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟓, 𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟖. 𝐊𝐢𝐦 𝐇𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝, 𝐒𝐞𝐨𝐮𝐥, 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐊𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐚.

Yuri and Namjoon tutor each other on Saturdays.

However, today is Chuseok, so the club and the Starbucks and the PC bang and all their usual hangout spots are all closed. Meanwhile, Yuri’s dad is home and he invited all his siblings over for the holiday, including Aunt Skin Lightening Cream from Busan. None of them are even from Seoul, so she’s not even sure why they’re visiting when you’re supposed to visit your hometown on Chuseok. 

Fuck Busan, her dad says.

Understandably, she doesn’t want any of her friends coming over to the house, especially when she knows her dad is going to use it as an excuse to get even drunker than usual. Namjoon’s place it is, then.

Yuri’s never been to his house. She’s never really gone over to a friend’s house before period, so when she tells her mom about it, she’s… _overenthusiastic_ , to say the least. Yuri spends a good half-hour reminding her mom that, no, she does not have a boyfriend and she is not going over to his house for Chuseok. They are just friends. Regardless, her mom does her up pretty for the occasion, fitting her into a baby blue hanbok and doing her hair and makeup all pretty.

A suited businessman on the subway even tells her that she looks pretty. She thanks him, and begins to wonder if she should maybe wear makeup more often. For once, she does feel pretty, just a little bit out of her element. But not out of place, with so many of the passengers in similar for attire for Chuseok. The feeling only intensifies when she steps off the subway and catches sight of Namjoon, who they agreed would wait there for her so he could walk her to his house, since she got lost easily. He’s in hanbok, too, but that doesn’t stop his eyes from widening when he sees her.

“What?” she says.

“Nothing,” he replies. “You look pretty.”

“Oh. Um, thank you.” She takes his arm as they walk back to his place. It feels natural at this point.

“Is everyone fine with me coming over on Chuseok?” she asks nervously. “Don’t you have anything planned? Am I intruding? Oh God, Namjoon, what if your mom doesn’t like me?” 

“You’re overthinking this. I don’t see why they’d be mad when we’re just studying together,” he laughs. “Seriously, it’s not like we’re dating or anything.” For some reason, the statement makes her heart beat a little faster.

“R-Right.”

When they get to his house, his parents welcome Yuri with open arms. They tease Namjoon profusely about her, to which they both have to repeatedly remind them that they are study buddies and are most definitely not dating. Yuri feels like she wouldn’t mind dating Namjoon, though.

No clue where that thought came from. She files that one away to deal with later, but it doesn’t stop her quickened heartbeat from kicking it into fucking overdrive. It only worsens when he invites her upstairs to his room, and she can practically feel her legs wobbling as she goes up the steps.

It’s so very Namjoon in a way she can’t describe. Little Kaws figures line his desk, textbooks lay scattered on the floor, and a blue-hooded Ryan plushie lies tucked in his bed like it’s a living person. It’s an instant reminder of how soft he is, no matter how hard he tries to hide it. She grabs the stuffed toy coos at it lovingly.

“That’s uh—that’s my sister’s,” he says. She ignores the obvious lie.

“Baby,” she says lovingly to the toy, squeezing its tummy. “Hey Namjoon, can I lay in your bed?”

“Uh.” Namjoon coughs awkwardly, turning away with flushed cheeks. “Do whatever you want.”

She flops down onto it rather unceremoniously, turning over onto her stomach with little care as to whether or not she smudges her makeup or wrinkles her hanbok.

“Smells like you,” she says without thinking.

“What?” he laughs, swiveling around in his desk chair to grin at her, a teasing smile on his face. With her having just said that, his embarrassment over a plushie pales in comparison. Now she’s the one scrambling for an excuse. She sucks at those, so she just powers on and tells the truth.

“The other guys use like, obnoxious amounts of cologne and Axe body spray,” she explains. Embarrassedly burrowing her face into the sheets, she says, “You just smell like boy.” He chuckles.

“I am just a boy.”

She lifts her face from the sheets to look up at him, hands folded nervously in his lap. In the big desk chair, he looks impossibly small compared to the tree of a man she knows him to be. Hip hop albums and posters line the shelves and the wall behind his desk, and it makes him look an awful lot like a dreamer.

Maybe Kim Namjoon and Lim Yuri are the same, she thinks. Two kids with dreams bigger than they will ever be.

* * *

⟹ 𝐎𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟓, 𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟖. 𝐇𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐝𝐚𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐒𝐞𝐨𝐮𝐥, 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐊𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐚.

She’s quiet today, Namjoon thinks.

It’s not like she’s being icy or anything. If anything, she’s being really objective and professional about everything—no teasing, no joking. It’s so bad she says she doesn’t want to meet at the PC bang because it’s too loud, and she doesn’t want to meet at her house because it’s loud there, too. He doesn’t get what she’s implying with the latter statement, but thinks it better not to pry.

Decidedly, they’re meeting at the same Starbucks they reunited in that week after she helped him find his glasses in that club in Hongdae. Somehow, it makes the distance between them feel impossibly wider. Maybe if things were this way when they first met, he wouldn’t mind, but it’s all so extremely un-Yuri-like that it makes his skin crawl.

Now that he thinks about it, she didn’t respond to his texts last night, either. Usually, she’d leap the opportunity to talk about her school life or the obnoxious musical theater kids, and he’d give her advice on how to deal with it like a good oppa. He doesn’t really mind, though. It makes him feel like he’s taking care of her. Makes him feel needed.

Which is probably why seeing her like this sucks so much. She’s obviously upset, but she won’t even talk to him about it, and she tells him everything that doesn’t involve the forbidden topic of her home life. Even that she’s let up on lately, letting little inklings of it spill out here and there. Her dad drinks a lot. _Her mother’s a bit protective. Her little brother is her baby, despite the demonic energy he exudes._ Basic things.

He feels like he should ask about it, but also struggles with the possibility that he might be prying into something she’s not comfortable talking about. He spends so much time wrestling with these thoughts that he ends up saying nothing the whole time, all the way up until closing and the barista kicks them out. Yuri’s working especially hard today, he notices, like she’s trying to distract herself from something. Uneasily, he continues to wonder what it is.

His discomfort only grows as he walks her down to the subway station and she still has nothing to say. On the days she veered into the weirdest, most off-topic territory, he reached over the table to flick her forehead and tell her to focus on the music. But even then, she’d find a way to squeeze a couple of personal anecdotes into the conversation, and then elaborate on the walk to the subway since they really didn’t need to talk about music stuff anymore.

Sometimes, it’d be the other way around, and he’d vent about his life problems on the walk back while she listened. But today, whatever problems he can scrounge around for in his mind feel miniscule compared to whatever she’s going through, if her sudden change of character is any indication. She even refused his regular offer of an extra canned coffee for the road.

She doesn’t look particularly upset, though? Just neutral. It’s definitely an unwelcome change of pace from her usual free-spirited smiliness, but she doesn’t seem to be doing too badly, so he just keeps his mouth shut. 

At least until halfway through their walk, when she trips over nothing and tumbles to the ground.

It’s not a particularly terrible fall, and she pushes herself back up onto her hands and knees without trouble. But then she just. Stays like that. Doesn’t get up off the ground. Gently, he taps her shoulder.

“Hey, c’mon. It’s dirty down there,” he chides softly, like he’s talking to a little kid. She doesn’t budge, so he places a comforting hand on the small of her back. “Are you—are you okay?”

It’s crazy how quickly those three words alone can break the proverbial dam, because suddenly she’s crying. No wailing or sobbing, just quiet tears with the occasional hiccup, which really is all the more heartbreaking.

“No,” she whimpers through her tears. “I’m not. I’m not okay.”

“Hey, hey,” he says softly, pulling her up off the ground and holding her tight against his chest. She’s pliant like a ragdoll, like she’ll fall over if he lets go, so he squeezes her tighter. Her arms make their way around his waist, resting just above his hips. 

The weight of the world comes tumbling out her lips, and he just holds her and listens. 

Everything makes her older brother mad these days. Her little brother, Daniel, the scary one, cries a lot. Her mom cries a lot. Her dad drinks a lot. Drinks too much. Her parents are divorcing and her mom is moving back to the Philippines without them.

_It’s just so much,_ she tells him. _It’s so much, Namjoon._ She apologizes over and over, because _I didn’t mean to break down, not like this, not in front of you. Not in front of anyone._

He frowns as he comes to the realization that she never talks about her problems or her feelings or insecurities, but he spills his to her and she coaxes his out of him all the time. He understands not wanting to share this with everyone, since it’s technically Kyunghee’s personal business, too. He’s glad that she’s able to confide in him like this. It just sucks that it took a breakdown for her to do so.

“I’m sorry,” she says, over and over and over. “I didn’t mean to dump all this on you. You have enough to deal with, you know?”

“Hey, don’t worry about me,” he says, burying his nose into her hair. “Just because my life sucks doesn’t mean yours can’t, either. Just don’t think about me and my shit, okay? There’s nothing wrong with talking about yourself for once.”

“That’s not—I can’t just—I can’t just ignore you. It’s impossible to ignore you,” she sniffles into his chest. Squeezes him tighter. “You’re my friend, you know? I care about you.” 

Namjoon breathes out a shaky sigh at that, goosebumps rising on his skin. His heart swells at her words, despite the circumstances, and all he can do is wish there was more he could do for her. There’s nothing to do but squeeze her tighter.

It’s a while until she pulls away to wipe her tears. He reaches down and smooths out her hair.

“I’m sorry for crying.”

“Don’t be.”

“Thanks, then.”

“Mm-hm.”

The rest of the walk to the station is peaceful and familiar. She picks the conversation back up, opting to ignore her breakdown and talking about literally anything else, instead. She talks about how her little brother has his first crush and how her older brother wants to be drum major next year and how the weird musical theater kids are, unsurprisingly, still off the shits. All the while, she grasps his hand in hers, fingers interlocked. She gives his hand the occasional squeeze, and he squeezes back without fail.

They part once they’re across the street from the station, subway and he finds himself incredibly endeared by the way she doesn’t want to seem to let go. 

“Goodnight, Yuri,” he says, reluctantly pulling his hand from hers.

“Goodnight, Namjoon-oppa,” she sighs, letting her fingertips linger over his for a minute He watches as she turns to leave, but suddenly something hits him.

“Hey, one more thing,” he calls out to her, and tries not to laugh at how fast her head whips around at the sound of his voice.

“Yeah?” she calls back.

“It’s, uh,” he says, “It’s impossible to ignore you, too.” 

It’s just a simple repeat of her own words, but he hopes she knows that he means them, because he wants them to make her feel the way he did when she said them—needed. Important. A little bit fluttery.

Her face crumples then, so sudden that he almost regrets saying it. But then she’s practically hurtling towards him, smacking against his chest with a force that quite literally knocks the wind out of him. She’s crying again, and this time it is the loud sobbing kind. He shushes her softly. Presses a kiss onto the top of her head. He rarely initiates affection, but in the moment it just feels right. 

They hold each other like that for who knows how long. He takes hold of her hand as she calms down, the two staring down at their interlocked fingers all the while.

She misses the subway in her reverie.

“Just say goodnight and go next time,” she jokes, laughing tearily into his chest. “Stupid Namjoon, making me late. Making me cry.” There’s no threat to it, though, because she squeezes him tighter, nuzzles her face deeper into his scent, practically burrowing into him.

“I’m sorry,” he laughs softly.

They spend another thirty minutes waiting for the next subway to come in, two kids holding each other under the Seoul streetlights.

* * *

⟹ 𝐀𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐥 𝟏𝟏, 𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟗. 𝐊𝐢𝐦 𝐇𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝, 𝐈𝐥𝐬𝐚𝐧, 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐊𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐚.

Yuri sprints to Namjoon’s house from the subway station at a speed unimaginable.

When Namjoon opens up the door, she’s panting and sweaty. He opens his mouth to question her about it, but before he can say a word, she’s shoving a piece of paper in his hands.

“The final match,” she recites the flyer word for word. Despite how out of breath she is, she still manages to smile brightly and sound excited. “Big Deal Show. August 23. Be there or be square.”

“The final match,” he repeats. His eyes bore holes into the paper even as he walks inside, Yuri following closely behind him. 

“You should do it, Namjoon,” she says. “Everyone’s waiting on you. You’re it, Namjoon.”

“Don’t say that,” he says, shaking his head.

“I’m serious,” she huffs. “They gave it to Kyunghee to give to me to give to you. Donghyuk didn’t get one. They want _you_.”

Namjoon looks up from the flyer to see her face, bright and wide-eyed and hopeful. He wonders where all those stars in her eyes came from. They can’t possibly be for him.

“Okay,” he says, grinning like a fool.

“Okay,” she says back.

“But there’s one more thing I should deal with before I go into this competition,” he admits. “I’ve been thinking of changing my stage name.” He’s been thinking about it for a while, really, even reserving the username on a throwaway account so nobody takes it, but he still brings it up to gauge her reaction just in case it really isn’t a good idea. Yuri’s always had a good feel for things.

“Aw, I like Runch Randa,” she says with a pout, but continues, “I guess I’m open to change. What are you planning on changing it to?”

“I was just thinking about shortening it to Randa. No big deal,” he says, throwing in that pun for good measure. He’s trying to be nonchalant about it, throwing a shrug in there and all that. But then she does That Thing where she folds her arms over her chest and looks up at him with those big ol’ doe eyes.

“Is this because Fetion called you ‘lunch boy’ in that diss track?”

“What? No. What? No,” he says twice. And forcefully. It’s laughable, really, and he commends Yuri for not letting even a chuckle out because he knows he’d lose it.

“Oh, Namjoon,” she sighs sweetly, and the way she says his name makes it sound like it could belong to anybody but him. It makes his heart fall into his ass. “Don’t look too much into what other people say about you. Rappers like to diss just because, you know? That’s just hip-hop culture.”

“It’s not because of that,” he says, and she frowns like she thinks he’s lying, which is only half-true. “Really. I just wanna go for a more mature sound, you know? Randa just sounds more respectable than Runch Randa, that’s all.”

“Nothing to do with Fetion?”

“Nope.” He even pops the ‘P’ for emphasis. Maybe he’s trying a little hard.

“I don’t know if I believe you, but I won’t press it,” she says. As expected, she sees right through him, but he counts the outcome as a win.

“Good,” he says. “I just wanted your opinion on it.” She gasps dramatically.

“Wanted the opinion of little ol’ me?”

“Of course,” he says, “You’re important to me.” He says it like it’s nothing, even though that couldn’t be further from the truth.

  * _**Epiphany #10:** Knowing you’re important to someone feels really, really nice._



* * *

⟹ 𝐀𝐮𝐠𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝟐𝟑, 𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟗. 𝐑𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐇𝐚𝐥𝐥, 𝐒𝐞𝐨𝐮𝐥, 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐊𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐚.

It’s a really big day for Kim Namjoon.

At the very least, it’s a big enough day that he’s arrived to the venue two hours early, just to be safe. He leans against the wall as he scrolls and scrolls and scrolls again over the lyrics he has written in the notes of his phone.

There’s a sense of finality to it. Logically, he tries to convince himself that isn’t true, but it’s already taken him this long to convince his mom that his interest in rap was more than a waste of time. He just needs this one shot, this one thing, to make her believe in him. That’s all he wants. All he needs. In the meantime, Yuri’s there to support and believe in him. His own cute little personal cheerleader.

Yuri just oozes cuteness, he thinks. If you asked the honest Namjoon, he’d tell you that he just wants to pick her up and put her in his pocket to take home. But the Namjoon in the real world is not only a teenage boy, but an aspiring rapper with a reputation to maintain. Masculinity is a prison. That doesn’t stop him from letting her hold his hand as she helps him practice his lyrics, all the way up until he goes on stage to perform. She even kisses his knuckles for good luck, like they’re in a fairytale. It twists his heart in a way that only pushes him to succeed. He has to do well. He has to win–to prove it to his family, to have something to celebrate with his friends, to make sure that all of Yuri’s producing and support hasn’t gone to waste with him.

_But he fucks up his only chance._

He forgets a bunch of the lyrics he’d planned out and ends up having to pull some _lyrical miracle spiritual individual_ shit out of his ass. After it’s all over, his heart sinks at the way that Yuri lights up when she sees him, even after all the performers and judges and audience members have dispersed. She looks at him like he didn’t just completely fuck up, like he didn’t just lose and give one of the most embarrassing performances in his life. Before he knows it, he’s crying.

His hands fly over his eyes in the hopes that she doesn’t see. He feels fucking pathetic.

“Hey, hey, hey!” she says, her soft voice panicked. Cautiously, her hands take hold of his wrists and, for fear of hurting her with his resistance, he goes limp and lets himself be handled. When she places her cool, tiny hands over his eyes, he can’t help but to breathe a sigh of relief. Though he can’t see her, he can feel her dropping her head into the crook of his neck, breath tickling his ear with gentle shushes.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she says softly. “I’m here. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

“I messed up,” he said.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Namjoon,” she sighs. “You did great.”

“I messed up,” he repeats. “I was the worst one there.”

“Don’t say that,” she chides, moving her hands from over his eyes to thread through his hair. “Are you deaf? Just because you didn’t win out of all these people doesn’t mean you did badly at all. There was only one ranking, you know? One of the judges asked for your contact info, right?”

“Just one. Sleepy.”

“I love Sleepy. That has to count for something, right?”

“He probably just felt bad.”

_“Oh, Namjoon.”_

She squeezes him as tight as she can. What else can she do? Meanwhile, he reaches out, feeling around since he can’t exactly see, until his hand finds purchase on the back of her neck. Oh God, she’s so small. 

He can faintly feel the ridges of her spine as hand slides lower to find its place on the small of her back. He could easily squish her if he tried, so he feels a tingly sort of pleasure at the trust she’s given him as she settles deeper into his embrace. God, he feels so bad. He hates that she’s almost always the one comforting him and picking up the pieces when all he wants to do is protect her from everything ever. If he weren’t so worried about hurting her, he’d squeeze her tight and probably never let go.

Yuri squeezes back just as tightly. She doesn’t understand why he thinks he messed up so bad. In her eyes, he did everything perfectly. Sleepy wouldn’t have asked for his contact information if he wasn’t any good, right? How could he have been anything but? Didn’t he hear himself?

She wishes he could just see himself the way she sees him.

To make matters worse, he seems to have lost his student ID somewhere at some point throughout the day. Yuri spends a good half hour helping him look for it in the dim lights of the club, and it fills her with a little sense of nostalgia for the night they first met. Unfortunately, they find nothing this time around. Seeing as he needs it to get on the subway, he calls his mom to pick him up instead. It’s just the cherry on top for how pathetic he’s feeling today.

Namjoon dries his tears and regains his composure so that his mom doesn’t ask about it when she shows up. When she arrives, she thanks Yuri for looking after her son and offers her a ride home, not taking no for an answer even as Yuri assures her that it’s okay and she doesn’t want to intrude. With the emotional draining he’s had today, she’d rather Namjoon get home as fast as possible, but she’s terrible at coming up with lies and excuses.

“Her dad is on his way to pick her up,” he lies for her, knowing damn well she’s taking the subway. His mother accepts this, thanking her again before waving her off. Once she’s out of eyeshot, she mouths a thank you to Namjoon. He forces a half-smile in reply.

Yuri plops down on one of the seats to sulk. Something stops her from leaving for the subway right away, and in retrospect, she likes to believe it was fate. It was probably just laziness.

In the midst of her musing and sulking, she notices a very familiar figure—from the judge’s table no less—emerge from the bathroom. Sleepy from Untouchable, she recognizes him as. She knows because her and her brothers have Quiet Storm on loop in their house, so he’s got to have some sway in the contestants they pass on. She’d worry about making a good first impression, but she was a friend before she was a fan. If it meant risking looking like a crazy person, then so be it.

“You!” she yells from across the room.

“Ah! Me!” he yells back in surprise.

“I need to talk to you!” she yells. He gulps as the tiny girl approaches him like he’s prey, not daring to take her eyes off of him. 

_Please don’t be a sasaeng,_ he prays.

He steels himself as she draws closer, relaxing as he takes in her measly, barely-five-foot stature. Yeah, he could handle himself if things went bad. He could punt a child. He sighs gratefully when he realizes he will have to do no such thing.

“H-Hey,” she says nervously, voice immediately going small when she’s in front of him. “You were a judge, right? For the contest?”

“Yes,” he replies, trying his damnedest not to sound intimidated by this little girl.

“I need your contact info.”

_“Excuse me?”_

“I—look,” she says, sounding more and more desperate by the minute. “I’m not asking for your number or anything, like—just give me your work email or something!”

“Uh—”

“My friend performed today,” she scrambles to explain. “In case some stuff happens to his work, I want you to have it. Or get your hands on it? So you have material to hear if you call back. Um, here, just take this.” She scribbles her email into her journal and rips the paper out before handing it to him. He squints his eyes at it.

“Beats by Glass,” he reads her email address.

“Yes.”

“I know you,” he says, “a lot of the trainees at TS use your beats for their audition tapes.”

“It’s ‘cause they’re free,” she explains. He looks surprised at that.

“Admirable.”

“Thank you,” she says, “I produced his stuff, too, um—yeah. Just let me send you my friend’s work.”

“Don’t you have your own music to focus on? Wouldn’t you rather promote yourself?” he asks. She shakes her head.

“He deserves this more than anyone.” Sleepy’s eyes soften at that.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

* * *

⟹ 𝐎𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟕, 𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟗. 𝐋𝐢𝐦 𝐇𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝, 𝐒𝐞𝐨𝐮𝐥, 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐊𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐚.

As a surprise to even herself, Sleepy emails Yuri back. She sends him Namjoon’s music that she has saved. He emails back a thumbs up emoji. _Ugh._

Unfortunately, just as Yuri had anticipated, Namjoon found himself in a bad headspace and immediately deleted all of his content off the internet in an especially powerful bout of self-loathing.

He could get a callback, she keeps reminding him, but he just won’t believe it—so he gives up before he even tries. He psychs himself out of things before he even gets a chance. His mom says that’s why he hasn’t started driving yet.

Despite this, Namjoon and Yuri still find themselves working together, even as Namjoon assures her that he is not interested in swallowing his pride and crawling back to the entertainment industry. For now, he’s just a songwriter that she’s teaching the basics of her beatmaking programs. She relents to letting him believe that, but she also takes the fact that he’s having anything to do with music at all as a glimmer of hope that he’ll return to his promising rap career.

At this very moment, Namjoon is not writing lyrics, and a good dozen pages of his notebook now half-filled with content he’s apparently dissatisfied with. For now, Yuri’s relented to letting him absentmindedly scribble on her left arm with a pen while she works her producer magic on GarageBand. She’s allowed it on the simple condition that he doesn’t draw any dicks or write any curse words on his arm because her mom might see.

“No promises.”

“Try it, bitch.”

Fortunately, he does not scribble any dicks nor fucks. It’s all just mindless doodles, like stars and swirls and hearts and that one pointy S everyone drew in elementary school. The only one she actually pays any mind to is a little crescent moon on her inner wrist.

“Aw, that suits you,” she says.

“How so?” he asks.

Yuri doesn’t know how to tell Namjoon that he reminds her of the moon, bright and calm and watchful and constant and underappreciated, without embarrassing herself. So she doesn’t.

“You’re… I don’t know,” she says. “It just does.”

“What were you gonna say?” he presses, raising a brow. As expected, he can see right through her.

“Nothing. There was no end to that sentence,” she says.

“Okay.” From his tone, it’s obvious that he doesn’t believe her, but he doesn’t press the issue any further. He was a lot better than the others at making sure not to stray into uncomfortable territory.

They usually sit together in comfortable silence, which she’s noticed has since become a staple of their relationship. She doesn’t mind, though. There are no expectations between them. It’s a nice change of pace from the constant expectations present in both their day-to-day lives. His silence today, though, seems a little tense. She doesn’t know how she can tell, but she can feel it. Maybe their hearts are connected, she thinks.

“Are you okay?” she asks, hoping she’s not wrong.

“I don’t know,” he admits with a sigh. “I don’t really like anything I’ve written at all. I feel like I’ve reached my limit, you know? Maybe I’m just out of good ideas. Maybe I never had any in the first place. Maybe I was never meant for this at all.”

She shoves at his arm, pouting up at him once she’s fully distracted him from his absentminded scribbling. There’s a wobbly line running down the side of her arm now, but she can’t bring herself to care very much.

“What?” he asks, annoyed.

“C’mon, Namjoon,” she huffs, ignoring the way he scoffs and rolls his eyes at her. “You’re really gonna let one bump in the road throw you off momentum for good?”

“That ‘one bump in the road’ was my last shot, Yuri,” he says hopelessly. “It’s over for me.”

“But you’re still trying,” she says. “I like to believe that means something. C’mon, let’s see what you’ve got.” She reaches over him to grab his notebook, flipping it open to a random set of lyrics. They’re close enough now to where Namjoon barely bats an eye at this—he is, both literally and figuratively, an open book to her.

Smoothing it out, she reads, _my heart is like a detective who is the criminal’s son. Even as I know who the criminal is, I can’t catch him._ She blinks a couple of times in surprise. Reads it again.

“You wrote this?”

“Yeah,” he admits sheepishly, scratching the back of his head. “Look, that one is really old. It’s from before we even met, I think. I know it’s kinda corny—”

“It’s good,” she cuts him off.

“Yeah?” he says, surprised. She just nods in response, even though there’s so much more that she wants to say.

She wants to tell him that everything he says leaves her in awe. That he’s the smartest boy she’s ever met. When she writes her lyrics, it’s always about something she’s seen or done or felt—but the lyrics he comes up with are written like stories, like there’s an entire universe in his mind. His mind is filled to the brim with different worlds and swirling galaxies, and hers does nothing but walk along a path already laid down by the cosmos.

But she doesn’t.

“It’s good,” she repeats instead.

She doesn’t know why it’s so hard to say what she feels. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t even know how to word how she feels.

Especially with Namjoon, as of late.

  * _**Epiphany #12:** Talking about feelings with Namjoon is hard now. Like getting over a great big hill._



* * *

⟹ 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝟎𝟕, 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟎. 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐛𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐬, 𝐈𝐥𝐬𝐚𝐧, 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐊𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐚.

Against all odds, Namjoon gets a callback. 

It comes directly from a man known as Hitman Bang, the CEO of Big Hit Entertainment—according to Namjoon, he’s a very successful songwriter (that’s where the Hitman part is from… how cheesy) who’s worked with big wigs like JYP before. Yuri hasn’t heard of the guy or his company. Probably some poor, weird indie label, from the looks of it. She’s not exactly sure how credible they are, but when the man sings Namjoon’s praises and offers him a contract, she pushes her doubts aside.

As soon as the phone call ends, Namjoon envelopes Yuri in a hug, warm and all-encompassing and very, very Namjoon-like. He feels like he’s on top of the world, like all the dreams he felt he’d thrown away as only dreams were tumbling back into the realm of possibility. It’s like all his wishes are coming true—in everything, there’s only one problem.

Namjoon has yet to tell his mom that he’s been rapping.

Of course she knows that he does it, but it’s just a little hobby in her eyes. She still believes the lie—well, half-truth, he prefers to say—that he’s going to PC bangs all the time, and not rap clubs in Hongdae. She’s found a couple of his lyrics tucked into the pages of his textbooks, but he bullshits excuses about how they’re extra credit poetry for his literature class. He’s been lying about it for years now, but now that he’s going to get signed for rapping, now’s as good a time as any.

He’s nervous. It’s one thing to confess that you’ve been lying for three years, but it’s another to beg your mom to sign a contract that’ll help you pursue your rap dream immediately afterwards.

Yuri was just there for emotional support. They’re walking to his house back from Starbucks because really, he could only gather the courage to do this when hyped up on overpriced espresso. They walk back with Yuri’s hand linked in his, and despite him never being the best with physical affection, it feels natural, supportive. Loving, even.

“You got this,” she says, squeezing his hand in hers.

“I got this,” he repeats, even if he sounds like he doesn’t quite believe what he’s saying.

“Just be honest about how you feel and everything’s gonna be fine,” she assures him. He doesn’t quite believe her (feeling things out was never his forte) but he supposes he’ll just have to take her advice on this one. He wishes she could just be there next to him, but having her randomly sat into their family discussion would just be weird. Instead, the plan is for her to sit in that same Starbucks they were just at until she gets the text that he is 100% okay.

“If it goes really bad, I am four blocks away!” she reminds him, putting up four fingers for emphasis. “Hopefully your dad won’t threaten to kill you, but you know. Just in case.” Namjoon grimaces, but nods. He wonders what her home life must be like for her to make comments like that.

“Okay,” he says.

Yuri’s heart falls into her ass as she squeezes Namjoon’s hands one last time before letting him go back into his house. Once the door shuts behind him, she practically sprints back to Starbucks, not wanting to stay close and accidentally hear yelling or some other part of the argument. She heard enough of that kinda stuff at home.

She can barely sit still at Starbucks, fidgeting anxiously as she thinks about what her friend must be going through right now. She brought her laptop and her notebook in her messenger bag so she could at least take advantage of the free Wi-Fi to work on stuff, but her mind always strays back to him. She periodically checks on her phone for any new notifications (her group chat with the boys has been long since muted) and heaves her shoulders in disappointment every time there is none. It’s been nearly four hours and he has yet to text her anything. 

Suddenly, the blip of a text notification on her phone catches her attention.

> **[18:27] Namjoon:** look outside

Yuri whips around to see Namjoon grinning behind the glass walls of the building. Carelessly shoving all her stuff back in her bag, she practically flies through the door to greet him.

She practically crashes against his chest, but it’s okay because he picks her up and spins her around like he’s just returned from war. He’s so bright and giggly and infectious that Yuri finds herself laughing, too. She almost feels like it’s a little romantic, but quickly kicks that thought away, as always.

“They said yes,” he says once he sets her down, like he’s still surprised, even now. “My parents said yes. They’re gonna sign the contract with me. I’m gonna be a rapper, Yuri.”

“Oh my God.” She’s in disbelief too, because that’d be tough news for any parent to handle. But Namjoon is the most articulate person she knows. If anyone could break that kind of news, it would be him. “How’d you win ‘em over? What’d you say?” Namjoon laughs nervously.

“It’s kind of—it’s so lame,” he says, embarrassed, but Yuri nods for him to go on. “My grades are 5,000th place in the country, right?”

“Nerd.”

“Shut up. Anyways,” he continues, “The part I think I really got them with was—basically, I asked my mom whether she wanted to have a son who was a first-place rapper or a 5,000th-place student.”

Yuri bursts into laughter.

“Cheesy!” she yells. “Namjoon, that’s so—that’s so _cringey_.”

“It worked, didn’t it?!” he defends himself.

“It was gonna work no matter what,” she laughs. He shakes his head.

“I think I just got lucky,” he says. She doesn’t believe it.

Kim Namjoon could take over the world, if he wanted to.

* * *

⟹ 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝟎𝟔, 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟎. 𝐈𝐥𝐬𝐚𝐧 𝐋𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐤, 𝐈𝐥𝐬𝐚𝐧, 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐊𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐚.

It’s a Saturday night, and Namjoon and Yuri hold hands as they walk through Ilsan Lake Park.

They do this a lot, now, and it makes her feel a little tingly. It’s just walking and talking, she knows, but it’s different. Whenever they’d go over to each other’s houses to study or work on music together, she’d psych herself out of any sense of excitement with the reminder that, as close as they may seem, they were still both getting things out of it. But this isn’t like that.

Neither of them are obligated to spend any time with each other outside of helping one another, but they do anyway. Namjoon ends up talking most of the time, but it’s okay. She’s no good with words anyway, and she likes his voice and the things that he has to say. Sometimes the skip rocks, even though neither of them are any good at it, before giggling at their failures.

Are these dates? she sometimes wonders. They feel an awful lot like dates. She doesn’t know how that makes her feel, but she feels it in the pit of her stomach. Yuri has always been upfront about the things she wants, but with Namjoon, she isn’t quite sure what she wants. She thinks she just wants to be around him.

“I’ve been discussing contract stuff with Hitman Bang,” he says casually, “and he’s thinking about changing it from an underground rap-based group to an idol boy group.”

Yuri freezes in her tracks beneath the streetlights.

“What?” she asks, making a face. “Seriously? You can’t be serious. You’re joking, right?”

“Why the hell did you say it like that?” he bristles. “Jesus. You’d think I told you I was planning on dropping out of school and becoming a stripper.”

“I’m just trying to warn you. Idol life is hard,” she says. “Netizens will have a field day with you.”

“Excuse me?”

“I—fuck, I didn’t mean it like that, okay?” she huffs. “It’s just that—you saw how people treated Nacseo when he signed to an entertainment label. I like idol music, too, but not everyone around us is open to that kinda change, you know? They’re gonna eat you alive, Namjoon,”

“I don’t care about their opinions,” he says, and she scoffs.

“You’ve never not cared about what people think of you,” she shoots back, her mind jumping to every time he’s thrown away a good set of song lyrics because he thought it’d make him sound lame or corny. Or God forbid, soft. “Why would you want to leave? Everyone in the underground scene already loves you. They’re gonna call you a traitor, just like they did to Nacseo.”

“Do you think I’m a traitor, Yuri?” he asks. When she responds with a beat of silence, he looks more betrayed than she could ever feel. _“Yuri.”_

“Why would you want to leave?” she repeats. “Look, I’m just saying—why would the company suddenly switch gears like that? Don’t you think that’s suspicious? What if they’re scamming you into debt? What if they’re trying to force you into a slave contract or something?!”

“God, why are you suddenly so against this? You sound like my parents right now!” he yells. “You know, of all people, I would’ve thought you’d be the one to get it.”

“What—of course I get it!” she huffs. “I handed you the flyer, I watched you perform, I waited for you when you told your family about it! There’s just no good reason to leave the underground scene to become an idol. The risks are just too much, Namjoon!”

“Well, I—no, you know what? I don’t need to justify myself to you!” he yells, despite proceeding to do just that. “I’m not just gonna stay in the underground because—because you want me to!”

“I just—why would you want to be an idol anyway?” she shoots back, scrambling for some bullshit reason that doesn’t sound as desperate as _please don’t leave me._ “They’re gonna control what you eat and who you see and everything! Everything’s gonna be different, Namjoon! We won’t be able to go to DGBD and we won’t be able to go out together like this anymore because they’ll throw you into a scandal over some stupid rumors and they’ll never let me see you again.”

“Wait, so—so this isn’t about me, right?” he says. He scoffs, shaking his head, “Yeah, this isn’t about me at all! This has nothing to do with what you think is going to affect me and everything to do with what’s going to affect you! This is all about you!”

“Shut up!” she yells back. “It’s not like that!”

“Really? Because I’m not so sure,” he says, and immediately regrets it when his doubt makes her look at him like she’s been struck. But he just keeps going. He can’t stop himself, no matter how much his conscience screams at him to. “If you were actually thinking about me, you’d be listening to what I have to say, you’d be taking everything that’s happened up until now into account—but you’re not! Why is that? Thinking with your gut instead of your brain again?”

“You’re—you’re talking too fast! Slow down!” she’s crying now, but it doesn’t register for either of them. She puts her hands over her ears, like she’s a little kid listening to her parents fight again. “Just shut up for one second, okay?! Shut up! Shut up! You know I’m no good with words!”

“I thought you were more mature than this!” he yells. “Fuck, you’re just—you really are just a little kid, you know? Seriously, you want me to throw away an opportunity for my family to let me do what I actually wanna do? So I can stay with you and the rest of the losers—”

They both freeze, mouths open in shock as the weight of his words set in.

“Wait, I—I didn’t mean that, I—” he’s stuttering, trying to find the words to fix things, even though he knows in his heart that he can’t take it back. “You’re—you’re not a loser—” He takes a step toward her, arms outstretched with the promise of comfort. 

But she refuses it, taking a step back into the streetlight. She looks so small, hands curled into her chest, so far away from him.

The world hits him all at once. They’re just two teenagers yelling in the Ilsan streets at night. She bows her head down, but he can still see the tears in her eyes, glistening under the street lamps.

“You should go home,” she says softly.

“Yeah,” he agrees.

“I’ll walk with you.” 

“Okay.” 

It’s an awkward walk back, to say the least. He’s still mad, and he knows she’s still mad, so he makes no move to touch her as she walks next to him. She doesn’t reach out to grasp his hand like she always does, instead awkwardly linking her pinkies together, like she doesn’t know where her hands belong if not in his.

“We’re here,” she says, stopping at the sidewalk across the street from his house—like she’s not welcome, like she wasn’t lying on his bedroom floor just weeks ago. Weird how fast things can change.

“Hey,” he says, feeling a sense of relief when she looks up at him instead of ignoring him. He almost doesn’t want to break eye contact, like if he does he’ll never have another chance. Still, he reaches into his bag, fishing through the energy drinks and coffee cans at the bottom he’d bought earlier that day, originally purchased with the express purpose of keeping himself awake during training. But this is ok, too. He settles on giving her a Baba Vanilla Delight, because he knows she likes sweet things.

“Drink this,” he says as he hands it to her. “So you don’t fall asleep on the subway. There are weirdos on the train, you know. If any weird old guys try talking to you, call your brother, okay?”

“Okay,” she says, popping open the metal tab and drinking. After a couple of gulps, there’s silence, before Yuri leans forward and gently presses her head against his chest. Reflexively, he places a hand atop her head. No patting or stroking. Just a gentle, awkward, weight.

“You should go inside,” she says.

“Yeah,” he agrees, but neither of them make the move to part. He doesn’t know why. He’s still mad at her and she’s still mad at him. But it just feels right. When it happens, she’s the one to initiate it, breaking away from his touch to sip at the coffee in her hands again.

“Bye,” she says.

“Bye,” he says back, even though his gut tells him not to. 

There’s a sense of finality to it, somehow.

Namjoon turns around sharply so he doesn’t have to think about it, but makes the mistake of looking over his shoulder one last time. She has yet to budge, sipping at her coffee and watching to make sure he gets into his house safely, even though she’s still upset. 

_I care, I care,_ her gaze says. He thinks he’ll know that forever.

But he doesn’t know that she starts crying as soon as he steps inside his house, or that she cries the whole way home, or that when she’s on the subway, she takes her journal out of her messenger bag and plops it in her lap to scribble a pathetic, self-aware message onto her epiphany list.

  * _**Epiphany #13:** Lim Yuri will never stop caring about Kim Namjoon. Never ever ever. Not in a million years.  
_



What a coincidence that it lands on such an unlucky number.

* * *

⟹ 𝐀𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐥 𝟎𝟕, 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟎. 𝐁𝐢𝐠 𝐇𝐢𝐭 𝐄𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐁𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐒𝐞𝐨𝐮𝐥, 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐊𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐚.

Lim Yuri makes her way to the Big Hit Entertainment building with nothing but a coffee in her hand and conviction in her heart. She’s nervous for a multitude of reasons.

For one, she’s about to interrogate an old music mogul when she’s a fifteen year-old girl that barely scrapes five foot nothing. No matter what bullshit her father has put the family through, she still stands firm with his advice that old men in the music industry are bad news. 

Secondly, she’s not supposed to be here. Nobody knows she took the subway here—she told her brother she was taking the subway to a friend’s house and really, it’s his fault for believing her lie. He should know damn well that she doesn’t have friends.

Thirdly, the coffee enhances every nervous feeling beating inside of her body. She feels like her heart is going to beat out of her chest. Regardless, she’s come too far to turn back now. Yuri raps her knuckles on the Big Hit building’s front door three times before ringing the doorbell.

As she waits, she can’t help but notice that the building is pretty small, especially for an entertainment company. Kinda shabby, if she’s being honest. Man, this place is poor poor. She wonders if they can even _afford_ trainees.

When a staff member opens the door, she tells them she wants to talk to the CEO. He narrows his eyes suspiciously at the little girl and tells her to schedule a meeting ahead of time. When she hands him ₩20000, his eyes widen and he directs her to sit in the waiting room. _Damn, really?_ These people were cheap.

Minutes later, another staff member directs her to the Hitman Bang’s office upstairs. She hates to be judgmental, but this place is like. The shitters. The floors are dirty and the paint is peeling off the walls and the halls are a tight squeeze through. When she makes it up to his office, she’s not surprised to see how small it is. She sits herself down onto the seat in front of him and opens her mouth to speak, but he quickly cuts her off.

“Here, sign in first,” he says. She expects him to direct her to a computer or a card reader or something, but he hands her a clipboard with a stack of binder paper on it instead. The sight makes her wrinkle her nose, but she signs it anyway.

_Whew, this is trashy._

“Lim Yuri,” he reads her name off the clipboard, “What brings you here today?”

“I, uh,” she pauses to shrug. “Just wanted to talk, I guess.”

“About?” he asks, quirking a brow.

“Kim Namjoon,” she admits. She’s not sure why saying his name aloud makes her face so hot. “He’s, um, a trainee in your company, I think. Or is going to be. I’m not really sure, uh, we haven’t really talked recently. Gonna need a status check on that one.”

“He’s coming in to sign his contract with his parents next week. It took a while, but he wore ‘em down,” he jokes, shaking a fist in victory. “So not yet, but soon.”

“This sounds like the kind of information that a company shouldn’t be sharing so freely. Haven’t you heard of contract confidentiality?” she huffs. “I came here to protect Namjoon, and you already seem like you’re not doing a very good job.” Old man Bang’s eyebrows shoot towards his hairline in surprise, obviously not expecting the little girl in front of him to be so serious about all this.

“Well, uh, he hasn’t signed any contract with us yet,” he justifies himself. “So I haven’t technically said anything confidential.”

“Nice save.”

“Thanks,” he says, before awkwardly clearing his throat. Regaining composure, he continues, “I can assure you, we’re doing our best to protect our artists, and will do the same for him once he’s with us. What do you think you need to protect your friend from?”

“I don’t know, weird industry stuff that he doesn’t know about!” she says, throwing her hands up in the air in frustration. “Like a slave contract or eternal debt or some weird shitty concept that he doesn’t wanna do, okay? I don’t know!”

“Relax,” he says. She huffs and folds her hands back into her lap. “Your friend is in good hands. It’s easy to take advantage of young trainees, but I can assure you that this is not the case here. We’re forming this next group around him. _Because_ of him. We respect his creative decisions and will be giving him near-full reigns on whatever projects he wants to work on. I’ve heard him rap before, so Lord knows he can.”

“Which one?” she asks after a beat of silence. She can’t fight the hint of a smile off her face, despite the circumstances.

“Huh?”

“What song did you hear him rap?” she asks curiously. “Was it the one about the detective? I like that one. That one’s my favorite.” He blinks a couple of times in surprise.

“Yes, I heard that one,” he says, nodding. “He’s very talented. Incredibly introspective for your age.” 

“I know,” she says, almost boastfully. “Everyone knows except him.”

“Do they now?”

“Yeah. I even asked Sleepy,” she continues bragging. “You know, from Untouchable? ‘Tell Me Why’? Yeah, him, and he agreed, too. I just know he’s destined for greatness, and—”

“You’re right,” he says. “When I first heard his audition reel, I thought, ‘this person deserves to be an idol.’ I didn’t even have to see him to know that.” Yuri lets herself smile at that.

“Glad to know we’re on the same page.”

“And I _do_ know Sleepy,” he adds. “In fact, he’s the one who showed me your friend’s mixtape and passed his contact information onto me.” Yuri’s eyes widen, genuinely surprised that he did that even after she harassed him at Rolling Hall. Outside the bathroom, no less.

“You know, I’m surprised that you know Sleepy,” he continues slowly. She can practically hear him thinking as he narrows his eyes at her. “Are you Glass, by any chance? The one from outside the bathroom?” 

Is that her thing now? She hates it here. His tone isn’t exactly flattering, but what’s she gonna do, lie?

“…I am she.”

“You’re that Yuri?” he asks, and she grimaces. 

“Yes.” She’s expecting him to like, shove a cross in her face or something. Instead, he just laughs.

“I heard you gave him an earful.”

“Well. Harassing old men on my friends’ behalves has recently become a hobby of mine,” she says wryly. He shakes his head, but even the old man can’t resist another laugh at that.

“That also means you made those beats, right? The ones in his audition reel?” he asks. 

“Yes, sir. Every last one,” she says truthfully.

“Interesting.” He folds his hands in front of his mouth and leans forward in his desk, and Yuri can practically see the cogs turning in his head. She can’t imagine what he’s thinking so hard about.

“Hypothetically, if we were to debut your friend in a boy group,” he begins.

“Oh God, I don’t like hypotheticals,” she interrupts. He laughs at her antics.

“It’d be a smart idea to have a female producer,” he continues. “Because if you think about it, that’d be our main audience, right? Girls around your age, give or take a few years?” She nods slowly as she thinks about the implications of what he’s saying.

“Yes,” she says after a long pause. “That would be smart.”

“And we’re already understaffed,” he admits. “It’d be a great help. I don’t know how much I’d be able to pay you—” 

“I can tell—”

“— _but_ you’ll be working with your friend, right? Isn’t that a good idea?” He raises a brow at her, and he doesn’t need to say anything more for her to know that it’s a question and an offer all in one. 

In all honesty, it doesn’t sound that bad. Doing what she likes and working with a friend? Getting ‘near-full’ creative reigns? It sounds too good to be true, even to herself. She can’t exactly say she trusts in this, but it seems like it’s worth a shot. She heaves a sigh.

“You got a business card?” she asks. He seems to panic at that, awkwardly scrambling around his desk. Yuri nervously links her pinkies together as he spends a good five minutes opening and closing and opening his desk drawers again and again.

“Uh, you know what?” He pulls a sticky note off the top of the stack on his desk and writes his email address and phone number. Yuri has to stop herself from grimacing. The disorganization of this little company makes her cringe, but she guesses she’ll just have to take a leap of faith.

* * *

⟹ 𝐀𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐥 𝟏𝟕, 𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟎. 𝐇𝐚𝐧 𝐑𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫, 𝐒𝐞𝐨𝐮𝐥, 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐊𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐚.

Yuri links her pinkies nervously as she sits, staring down at the _dosirak_ boxes in her lap.

She’s on a park bench by the Han River, praying to every God she can think of that Namjoon shows up. She’d texted him earlier that week asking him if they could meet there, to which he replied with a simple ‘okay’ text—a very bad sign when coming from the wordiest guy alive. But they did just have a really bad falling out, so she supposes beggars can’t be choosers.

“Hey,” she hears a familiar voice say from behind her, accompanied by a tap on the shoulder. It makes her whip around so fast she nearly smacks him with her ponytail.

“Oh, um, hey! Hey,” she says nervously. Namjoon laughs fondly, shaking his head.

“You look like you got stood up for a date,” he jokes, taking a seat next to her on the bench. She can’t help but blush as his knee bumps against hers. They sit in silence for a moment, as was usual in the Namjoon-Yuri dynamic. Despite the awkward air about them, it dawns upon her just how much she’s missed him, even just by sitting next to him like this.

“Here,” her voice cuts through the quiet as she drops one of the dosirak boxes in his lap. “I, um. I made this for you. And I wanted to say I’m sorry.” Namjoon clicks his tongue.

“Don’t be,” he says, shaking his head. “I should be the one saying sorry. I overreacted and said shitty things to you that I shouldn’t have. I’m embarrassed, really… I’m the older one, you know? I should’ve been the one to apologize first, if anything. I know you say things because you care, or because you don’t want to be lonely… and I get that. Nobody wants to be lonely. Nobody deserves to be lonely, especially a person like you who always does things for other people.”

_“Namjoon-oppa.”_

“Hm?”

“You have this—” she cuts herself off, voice cracking. “You have this bad habit of making me cry.”

Wordlessly, Namjoon shrugs off his jacket, draping it over her shoulders and placing a comforting hand atop her head. He coos when she leans into his touch. It makes her chuckle softly, even through the tears. She slips her arms into the sleeves, using them to wipe those tears away.

“Sorry for getting snot on your jacket,” she sniffles. He shakes his head, moving his hand down from her head to rub comforting circles into her back.

“Keep it. It looks better on you anyway,” he assures her. He drops a jab in there, too, if only to reach for a bit of normalcy. “And I just took it off, so. It’s got that boy smell you like.” He laughs when she smacks him with one of the long sleeves.

“Suuuure,” she says sarcastically. She rolls her eyes at his words, sincerely doubting that she looks good in anything in her current snotty, teary-eyed state—let alone a jacket that’s like, four sizes too big for her. But Namjoon has, embarrassingly enough, read her for filth. She will very much be keeping the jacket for as long as it has that very distinct Namjoon smell.

She leans her head on his shoulder and realizes she really, really missed him. That’s just the truth of it. She missed him and his smell and his dimples and his weird metaphors and his big wrinkly brain.

“I just want to make things clear,” she begins nervously, “If you think signing with Big Hit is the way to achieve your dreams and stuff, I want you to do that. I want you to know that I’ll be right there with you.”

“Thanks,” he says. “It’d be tough to know someone I cared about wasn’t supportive of this.” The admission makes her blush, but she shakes her head.

“No, I mean like, literally,” she admits, laughing nervously. “Um, I went to their building the other week, you know? To check it out and see if there was anything weird happening there. I, um, talked to the old man upstairs—old man Bang, not God.” He laughs at that. It melts her heart a little. “But, um, yeah. He was talking about how they’re understaffed and had heard about my producing and stuff and thought it’d be a good idea since we worked together already. We’re not discussing contract stuff for like, another two weeks? But before that happens, um, I just wanted to let you know before you sign yours. I won’t do anything that like, forces you to work with me or—”

“You don’t need my permission to do anything,” he says. “You want to still work together, right? Isn’t that why you went there?”

“Yes.” A half-truth, but she’s not gonna admit she harassed that poor old man to ensure his safety. That’d probably be a blow to his ego, and seeing as they just made up, that’s the last thing she wants.

“Then you should. We already know how the other works. It just makes sense,” he says. “And we’ll be together.” And her whole stomach does flips.

Her whole mind is going a mile a minute, then. It barely registers when he holds out his fist, and a couple awkward seconds pass before she has the brainpower to bump it back.

When he smiles at her, dimples on display and teeth poking out from between his lips, it feels like a punch to the gut. The relief she’d felt swell in her chest when she heard his voice is nothing compared to the tingling sensation she feels in her stomach right now. Suddenly, she understands what her older brother meant that night she asked about Donghyuk, and he said some bullshit about _not knowing until you know_.

She gets it now because she knows. It’s going to race through her mind every time she looks at him. She doesn’t need to write it down, but she knows she will when she gets home, if only to get it out. She needs an outlet for what she feels like is going to be etched into her heart forever.

  * _**Epiphany #14:** Lim Yuri is stupidly, uncontrollably, undeniably in love with Kim Namjoon._




End file.
